


Let's Set the World on Fire

by firstbreaths



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-01
Updated: 2013-11-01
Packaged: 2017-12-31 02:58:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1026463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/firstbreaths/pseuds/firstbreaths
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An AU where Lily and James live to see their son off to Hogwarts. Seven September 1sts in the lives of Lily, James and Harry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Set the World on Fire

**Author's Note:**

> For epigenetics, who prompted an AU where Lily and James live to see Harry off to Hogwarts. I’d apologise for making that seven times they see Harry off to Hogwarts, but I’m not actually sorry. Set in an AU scenario where the prophecy never existed and Voldemort was vanquished before he could come after James and Lily.

September 1, 1991

 

Harry doesn’t even glance back as he pushes through the barrier separating Platform 9 and ¾ from the rest of Kings Cross, just hurries through the other side with James and Lily following suit before breaking into a run; ahead of them Lily can see several tufts of red hair and someone shouting about what she thinks might be a giant tarantula. Of _course_ the Weasleys are involved somehow.

 

“He’s going to take after his father, isn’t he?” she smiles wistfully, giving James a short, sharp jab to the upper arm, and he just laughs. Lily doesn’t mind, not really – her own eleven-year-old self had been terrified of running through the barrier, of saying goodbye to her parents because _what if it’s all a practical joke despite what Severus says_ , and as much as she wouldn't change things, now, she’s kind of glad her son won’t have to play catch-up. “Although, I’m willing to bet our son can find most of the secret passageways in Hogwarts without a map. He might have your adventurous streak, but he’s got mycommon sense.”

 

“I’d bite, but we both know that’s more sort of Remus’ thing,” James replies, before calling out to Harry. Lily watches from a distance as he extricates himself from a huddle that seems to include most of Gryffindor house and Ron, who’s clutching what looks like a _toad_ , one hand in his hair to flatten it as he skids to a stop.

 

“Don’t make this embarrassing, Mum,” he pleads, and Lily just laughs, because every kid says that, every year they get dropped off on the platform, and she’s not about to advocate for her son being an exception. “Sirius said –“ and he breaks off, eyes cast down at the ground as Lily draws him into a hug, trying not to worry _because he’ll be fine, he’ll be fine_ , as James hooks his chin over her shoulder from behind and wraps an arm around her waist. Lily lets herself settle into his embrace even as she holds Harry tight. “I _really_ want to get sorted into Gryffindor, okay. I can just ask the hat, right? It’s not like it would ignore me, or anything, right?”

 

She can feel James relax behind her, even as he gives her a supportive squeeze, and she smiles. Because bravery isn’t a thing that you are, it’s a thing that you do, she and James have learnt this the hard way after months, during their seventh year, of dancing around each other, neither quite able to say what they were truly thinking, so she runs her fingers through Harry’s hair as she says, “The fact that you know what you want, Harry – your dad and I, that’s all we can ask.”

 

“You messed up my hair!” Harry exclaims as he pulls away, turning to head back to his friends as the conductor starts to round up the straggling students, and Lily just lets him go. For a minute, it does feel kind of like a practical joke, that she could be lucky enough to have all this.

 

Instead of pondering, though, Lily just laces her fingers together with James’, their shoulders bumping up against each other as they stand at the end of the platform, both of them waving as the train pulls out of the station, and forces herself not to cry.

 

It’s futile, really; beside her, James is already pulling out a handkerchief to wipe away his own tears, and that’s how she knows: they’ll be fine.

 

~*~

 

September 1, 1992

 

“Mrs. Potter,” a voice comes from somewhere behind her, and Lily turns on the spot to see Hermione Granger looking up at her with a shy smile, robes perfectly pressed and a textbook under her arm. “Lovely to see you as always – my parents wanted to thank you for that package of sugar-free sherbets you sent over the break. I was just wondering if you’d seen Harry at all.”

 

“He was with Ron, near the exit,” James offers from beside her, and the corners of Hermione’s mouth curl slightly into a frown that makes Lily curious. Of all Harry’s friends, she’s got a soft spot from Hermione. “Did you want us to help you find him?”

 

“No,” and her bottom lip quivers, ever so slightly, “Ron told me exactly how he feels about me using the train ride to brush up on some more intermediate charms. I’ll be fine.”

 

And _oh._ “I don’t know if Harry’s told you this,” Lily says to Hermione, bending down slightly, “but I have Muggle parents too. And I always felt so far behind because of it. If you tell Ron, that I’m sure he’ll understand.”

 

Beside her James smiles warmly, and she’s so, so glad that she found someone who did. James, for reasons she can’t always understand, _still_ treats her like a present, and with him Lily feels safe, secure, ready to have her layers unwrapped. 

 

“He tries,” Hermione says. “This isn’t about that – it’s just about him caring more about stupid _Quidditch.”_ Hermione shakes her head, glancing up at Lily. “Like I toldHarry once, there are more important things than books. But that doesn’t mean I want to talk about the best broomstick polish for two hours.”

 

“Of course there are,” says Lily, squeezing James’ hand tight between them. “But the thing is, one day, there’ll be someone who’s interested, not in spite of the books but because of them.” She leans forward, says, “Don’t tell Mr. Potter I told you this, but I _know_ that he was a lot better at mixing a Delirium Draught than he would have you believe.”

 

James makes an affronted noise beside her that sounds kind of like a meowing kitten.

 

Hermione just looks between them, and says, “Well, I’m not exactly looking for a boy right now, but thanks Mrs. Potter. Also, Mr. Potter – Professor Slughorn offered me some extra lessons, to get ahead, and I’m sure if I asked him I could send home some textbooks with Harry if that would help you.”

 

“Hermione,” they both say in unison, turning to each other, but the train lets out a piercing whistle and she mouths a _thank you_ at them before running off.

 

“Let’s just hope our son’s overprotective streak lends itself to rescuing her from the Slug Club, then,” James says, and they both laugh, because that was a debacle and a half, but Lily knows these kids will work it out. She and James did.

 

~*~

 

September 1, 1993

 

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Remus sighs from the other side of James, as the three of them appear on the platform, Lily straightening the collar of Harry’s robes before he runs off to find Ron and Hermione. She’s gotten better at letting him go, and if in two years she’s only had to send three Howlers and one of those was a joke from Sirius, then she thinks they’re doing this whole parenting thing okay. (Although, if her son is anything like his father - they probably don’t know half of what he’s actually up to).  “Surely as a teacher I should command some type of authority even on the platform.”

 

“You’re replacing Gilderoy Lockhart, Remus,” James says with a chuckle. “Still don’t know how the git managed to blow off part of his own ear magically replenishing his hair potion, but there you have it. Still, who’d have thought - one of us becoming a teacher.” The look on his face is such a mix of shock and awe that, after a moment, Lily and Remus start laughing too, Remus suddenly looking so much less weary, the muscles in his face stretching tight until Lily can almost forget the thin, ropey scar that sits under his jaw.

 

She’s suddenly so, so thankful to Dumbledore for giving Remus this opportunity - even if she’s already had to warn James and Sirius that they cannot, under any circumstances, think about a Whomping Willow reunion.

 

“Keep an eye on Harry, for us,” James says, “and - for what it’s worth, given the stories I’ve heard from our son and his friends when they think we’re not listening, I’d keep an eye on the Weasley twins too.”  
  
“I can’t play favourites with my students, James,” Remus replies, but there’s a twinkle in his eye that Lily recognises instantly, it’s late nights with bottles of mead on the deck in summer after Harry’s gone to bed and that look he used to get when Sirius draped a Gryffindor scarf over his shoulders like any of them actually believed his protests about having to attend a game of Quidditch. “I’ll make sure that, should he get detention, there are no Flobberworms in sight.”

 

Lily cuts off James’ frown with a quick kiss to the cheek, whispering in his ear, “You know Remus will make him sort files so he just _has_ to ask about your impressive detention record or something, right?”

 

“I heard that!” Remus says, with a short sharp cough. “I may just ask him to help Madam Pince dust all the book covers in the library instead, if that’s how you think of my disciplinary abilities.”

 

They’re all laughing though, and the three of them come together for one final hug, Lily clutching at both Remus and James’ hand as she plants a kiss on Remus’ cheek, and then she and James stand aside as they watch Remus find a seat through the windows of the train. She remembers the two of them sitting together in the Prefects cabin during their own fifth year, laughing over Remus’ stories about that time he ate too many chocolate frogs as a kid and comparing study tips for their OWLs, and it’s funny, really, how sometimes growing up makes her feel so young, like there’s so many lives they could have lived and they’re still standing on the precipice, able to make all of these choices. The fact that Remus - after so many years of being the secretly cunning one - is going to be a teacher makes her wonder what other possibilities could have been.

 

Harry comes up to them then, ready to say goodbye, and Lily just hugs him so tight he squirms and lets out an embarrassed ‘Mum!’.

 

She’ll let go in a minute, because she’s pretty happy with this particular choice, really.

 

~*~

 

September 1, 1994

 

“Wake up, James,” Lily mumbles, planting her knees either side of the body as he rolls over onto his back and squints up at her, one arm reaching out for his wand on the bedside table. She plants a series of quick kisses on his jaw, moving down towards his shoulder, pulling back only when his he finally reaches his hand and she has to duck as his glasses come zooming over from the dresser.

 

“What’s the –“ James asks as he puts them on, the corners of his mouth slowly curving upwards in a sleepy half-smile as he looks up at her. “Bollocks. It’s almost – is Harry ready to leave?” and then “Bollocks, Lily, you can’t do that to a man when he’s got to look respectable enough to send his son off to Hogwarts.”

 

Lily just laughs, letting her breath ghost across James’ skin as she plants a kiss to his chest, before looking up and smirking at him. His whole body twitches beneath her palms, and she lets the energy conduct up through her like a lightning bolt, her skin white-hot and burning like fiendfyre at the pressure points between them; she is Lily and he is James, and after twenty-odd years there’s still more sparks than a first year charms class between them.

 

It’s thrilling; after all those years of trying to turn James’ attention away from her, how her whole body now tips in orbit always towards him, like they’ve spun full circle on the line along which they’ve always been tiptoeing either side.

 

“In case you were too distracted to notice,” she says, “Harry owled us like three hours ago from the Weasleys, he’s getting the train to Hogwarts with them so that he can finish teaching Arthur all the things he picked up at my sister’s over the summer on the way. You know,” Lily adds thoughtfully, shifting all of her weight to the side of James before lying down beside him, dressing gown rucked up beneath her, “we really ought to convince Molly to do something about that dreaded owl. At least this time it was lucky enough to land in my hydrangeas.”

 

“Lily,” James says, putting up a finger, “are you telling me that you woke me up to tell me that we _don’t_ need to take our son to London to meet a train, because frankly, that seems a little illogical.”

 

“James,” she sighs, leaning in for one more kiss, “I woke you up because this is the first day of the rest of our – until Christmas – childfree lives, and I want to make sure I can enjoy it fully”.

 

“Oh yeah,” James replies, sitting up slightly, “because I have this plan that makes us look like anything _but_ respectable parents,” and then he’s leaning in for a kiss.

 

Lily smiles into it as his hands come up to the shoulders of her robe, thinking about all the future mornings with and without Harry until her body’s ablaze but her heart’s as warm as a hearth.

 

~*~

 

September 1, 1995

 

There’s been an outbreak of assorted skin diseases that various patients have been attributing to the Weasley twins’ new shop on Diagon Alley but Lily suspects are really just due to people spending too much time doing all sorts of things in celebration and close proximity at the British World Cup. She’s been on duty at Mungos since eight last night, and it doesn’t look she’s going to be able to get off work any time soon, certainly not in time to take Harry to the station for school.

 

Lily darts around a patient just in time to avoid the bright green splatter as they cough, pointing her wand at the mess and shouting ‘evanesco’ as she makes her way up to the hospital owlery to contact James. She _knows_ he’s capable of accompanying Harry to Kings Cross - heck, at fifteen Harry can probably go on his own if they didn’t want to look like the completely irresponsible parents at Hogwarts  and just because her old friend Mary McDonald can take care of triplets doesn’t mean -

 

She takes a deep breath and steadies her hand as she grabs some parchment and a quill from the box and writes

 

_James,_

 

_Stuck at work ‘til noon - make sure Harry gets off safely, will you, and DO NOT use this as an excuse to take Sirius’ motorbike to Kings Cross, no matter how much you hate Floo Powder and it’s easy to find a car park with. Give him a hug for me._

 

_Love,_

_Lily_

 

She quickly chooses a small but reliable barn owl and ties the rolled up parchment to its leg, before letting it out the window. She watches it go for a moment, flapping its wings as it disappears into the darkness, In one of the cages behind her, an owl hoots as the moonlight shines on it for a split second. It’s nights like this, when her hair smells like vomit no matter how many spells she casts on it and she just desperately wants to go home to be with her family, that she forgets, sometimes, why she’s here in the first place. An eighteen year old girl, somehow both wise beyond her years and naive, brimming with contradictions in a way that made her feel so alive in a world where so many people wanted her dead, with an an Outstanding in a her potions NEWT and a desire to help the war effort in anyway she could.

 

The war may have been over well before it was won, thanks to the hard work of the Order and Regulus Black, but sometimes Lily remembers the _what ifs_ all too clearly, like little Muggle films on rotation in her head, and James had never quite understood because all of his fears had been trapped inside the pages of newspapers and books with no space to breathe; he was better at masking his fear than her but worse at dealing with it.

 

Glancing back out into the night, where the moon is bright but only a single star twinkles on the horizon,  Lily takes one final deep breath before she makes her way back down to the wards, slipping into her smile like a coat, too big for a moment until she shrugs her shoulders into it, settling into it like a second skin and it feels just right. She’ll keep fighting, will always keep fighting; even if it’s just to ensure that her husband and her son don’t end up victims of a Britain-wide plague.

 

~*~

 

September 1, 1996

 

Lily’s in the middle of a conversation with Harry about the importance of his NEWTs, trying not to frown as he passively nods at everything she says. She knows her son; last-minute resilience is kind of a thing that he does, and besides she’s fairly sure that Hermione Granger will have study plans for him and Ron outlined before the first week of classes is done.

 

“We have careers meetings with McGonagall _again_ later this year, of course I’m going to work hard. No one turns up to her class without having done their homework, do you think I’d rock up with poor grades and no plan for the rest of my life?”

 

“Well make sure you don’t,” Lily replies, “I’m not above asking Hagrid to keep an eye on you in Care of Magical Creatures, you know that.” She wouldn’t, not really, and Harry knows that - she and James are both of the belief that they only made their best decisions - like falling in love with each other - because they were allowed to make mistakes along the way. It’s a philosophy that’s always been present in her parenting.

 

Molly comes over then with Arthur a few steps behind her, her hair glinting in the lights at the end of the platform. “We just wanted to say another congratulations to Harry,” she says. “Quidditch captain is a big deal, and I’m sure Charlie will pass on some tips I’ll get him to owl you.” She wraps Harry into a wide-armed hug that leaves him momentarily scrabbling for footing, until Arthur taps Molly on the shoulder and she pulls back, giving Lily an embarrassed smile. It’s not like Lily actually _minds_ , though; she’s certainly not going to stop people complimenting her son (unless it’s Slughorn. She _really_ needs to talk to Dumbledore about the fact that he’s still teaching there).

 

“James must be proud,” Arthur says, reaching out to shake Harry’s hand. “Molly’s probably glad none of our kids took after me - almost blew myself up in fourth year trying to.” He must catch a glimpse of Molly’s unamused eye roll, because he quickly adds, “not that we talk about that.”

 

And Lily just nods, tilting her head in the direction of where James is talking loudly to Remus about how he’s glad Harry’s a Seeker because otherwise his own goal-scoring records would be in danger, Remus ducking as one of his hands comes up in an animated gesture and says, “I’m proud of him too.”

 

Like father, like son, but the small smile that Harry hides as soon as he notices her looking, the fact that she _knows_ he’s got dreams even if he doesn’t always make them clear to her; it makes her think that he’s a little like his mother too.

 

~*~

 

September 1, 1997

 

Platform 9 and ¾ is bustling as James and Lily make their way through the crowd after Harry, who is precariously balancing Hedwig’s cage in one hand and a bag full of sweets to share with his friends on the train in the other. Lily just laughs as James makes a disgusted face at two Ravenclaw students snogging against a post, and jabs at him with her wand, because they’d totally been that couple, at the end of seventh year, before she’d headed back to her parents’ for a month. (Besides, Harry is mysteriously nowhere to be found and, she suspects, neither is Ginny).

 

“Let them go,” she says, “It’s much less uncomfortable here then if you have to share a compartment with them on the train.” James just rubs at his shoulder where she’d poked him, frowning. She’ll never tell him for fear of death, but it’s kind of endearing, the way his brow furrows as he picks up on, suddenly, the same memory she’d just been experiencing.

 

“That’s true,” James says, eyebrow raised, “I remember Moony and Wormtail being disgusted by us. If only I knew _how_ they managed to switch out my pumpkin juice for Polyjuice potion that night.” He looks momentarily scandalised, running a hand through his hair like the memory of having looked like someone else, for even a short while, was too much to bear. “One accidental mouthful and I looked like Flitwick for at least ten minutes!”

 

“It was a shame, really,” Lily says, with a laugh. “I wish I’d have been there to see it, the picture Sirius owled me was not enough.”

  
“Oh yeah,” James replies, and his voice has gone all scratchy and deep in a way that doesn’t quite ring true for a moment, not here in this train station with the entirety of Hogwarts’ student population bustling about, “I was short, and I had a beard. I know you, Lily Potter. There’s no way you would have been okay with that.”

 

She pretends to think about it for a moment, says, “I would have been okay because it was you, though. Really you, underneath. Besides, you totally deserved it - I don’t think you listened to anyone’s goodbyes that day, even if you were seeing them later,” and then she pushes him backwards as she reaches up for his jaw, James’ boots clacking uneven on the tiled platform for a moment as he steadies himself, and the two of them duck into an alcove thankfully free of passionate teenagers as she stretches up on tiptoes for a kiss.

 

If her hands are still in James’ coat pockets and their cheeks and both of them are flushed and breathing heavily when Harry stumbles upon them, promptly spins on his heel and mutters, “How am I supposed to look Professor Slughorn in the eye when he says I remind him of my parents now?”, well -

 

They were only children once.

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
